He cleans the base of the skis
with a fine, steel brush to remove
the old wax, his body swaying
above the ski, tip to tail, tip to tail,
so the micro hairs on the base
will lay down in the direction of travel
on snow. A fine copper brush
cleans it more. His movements
are quick, precise, a dance
that now comes naturally.
The only music is the sound
of the brushes, the sound
of his breath. There is no
laughter, no joking,
not even a smile, but
sometimes on winter nights
I walk toward the light
in the garage and watch
his body intent on its work,
and I feel the quiet joy
he finds in preparation
and the work of foundation,
and his joy seeps into me,
soft as the darkness
that holds the garage,
deep as the space
that holds us all.
Posts Tagged ‘skiing’
Contact Joy
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged joy, marriage, skiing, work on April 1, 2022| 10 Comments »
Still Learning What It Might Mean
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged learning, poem, poetry, skiing, wax on January 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Dave drips the hot blue wax onto the ski
and tells me how it will help the ski meet the snow.
“The cold snow is sharp,” he says, “and aggressive.”
Today’s wax will harden the base of the ski.
I think of the world and all its sharpnesses,
all its aggressions. We humans
are not so unlike the snow. I’ve been fooled
so often. Perhaps my soul needs blue wax.
No, I think, what the soul really needs
is more like the scraper he pulls out,
and the brushes of copper, horsehair, and nylon.
What the soul really needs is a scouring.
He explains that the scouring allows
the cuts in the structure to be exposed
so that the skis don’t suction to the snow.
Is that what all these little cuts are for in me?
To keep me from getting stuck? Later,
as I skate in the race and feel my ski glide
across what is cold, I thank Dave
with my visible breath.
There are so many ways to relearn
how it is we meet the world. Today,
the lesson is a ski, a scraper, some wax,
a man with an iron, and acres and acres of snow.
Riding the Chairlift
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged daughter, mother, poem, poetry, pretend, skiing, snow on March 3, 2019| Leave a Comment »
By then, the blizzard was strong enough
that we couldn’t see past the chair in front of us—
all was white oblivion. And though I knew
the world, though obscured, was still there,
part of me trusted the illusion.
It reminded me of when we were kids
and at slumber parties we’d play the game
“stiff as a board, light as a feather,” in which
one girl would lie in the center of a circle,
and another would tell the spooky story
of how the supine girl had died, and how, on her death,
her body was said to be “stiff as a board, light
as a feather,” and the rest of us would slip two fingers
beneath her and carry her about the room.
I knew, of course, that my 100-pound friends
were not truly feather light, but we played the game
over and over and swore it was true. There is some thrill
in sharing a myth that defies common sense.
And so today, when I say to my daughter
that we are entering a hidden realm through a veil
and she disagrees, I am shocked how disappointed
I am when she doesn’t share the game. In that instant,
the snow is just snow, the day just a day.
There is a joy here, too, in calling things as they are.
A woman. A girl. A storm. A chairlift traveling through.
One Friendship
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged friendship, poem, poetry, skiing, snow on February 16, 2019| Leave a Comment »
for Corinne
skiing into the blizzard
finding laughter in gusts and drifts
skiing out into sunshine
One Double Black Diamond
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, self-doubt, skiing, snow on January 20, 2019| Leave a Comment »
snow so deep, so soft
even the me who thinks she’s not good enough
laughs, whoops, falls, rises
Easier with a Friend
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged bravery, courage, friendship, poem, poetry, skiing, terza rima sonnet on February 19, 2018| 4 Comments »
for Corinne, skate skier extraordinaire
The meadow was a violent scourge of white,
and still we chose to leave our cars and ski.
The wind and blowing snow obscured our sight,
lashed through our hats and stole our breath, but we
leaned into it and laughed, as if the storm
were nothing more than an excuse to be
more brave, more willing to eschew what’s warm
so we might face our fear, find joy in risk—
and sure enough, I felt myself transform
from nervousness to animated bliss—
and we for hours skied amidst the gusts
and for that time, knew nothing more than this:
to meet the crazy storm. When scared, to thrust
ourselves into the howling world. And trust.
Going Skiing with Anna Akhmatova
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged anna akhmatova, friendship, poem, poetry, silence, skiing on February 4, 2018| 2 Comments »
with a line from “Snow” by Anna Akhmatova
The spruce boughs are empty
of snow as we ski up the old
railroad grade. And when we arrive
at the top, the sky opens up,
an enchantment of blue.
I want to ask her how it felt
to be caged, to be clipped,
to be silenced. But she looks
at me as if to say the mood
is too tender for talk. And so
we let the words disappear
like the snow that is not falling,
and we move together
as good friends do, letting
one lead, and then the other.
One Unselving
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged poem, poetry, skiing, snow on February 3, 2016| 2 Comments »
It’s Been Growing In Me, This Feeling
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged forgiveness, love, poem, poetry, skiing on December 12, 2013| 3 Comments »
Today forgiveness is like the tracks
in the snow at the park where the skis
might follow, and the following is easy.
There are many other ways that one
might go, but it seems simple to move
through the trees in these slots that
were made for people like me who
are afraid of getting hurt. I’ve been injured
recently. I imagine painful things. Though the path,
it hosts no mountain lions, no volcanoes,
no dragons, no skunks, no traps.
I have to laugh at how straightforward it is
to forgive. You do nothing and it arrives.
And around the corner, it’s still there.
Of course it happens in its own time.
How pure the impulse to want
to share its grace. So much freedom!
Isn’t it ironic, what now feels safe.
But we cannot lead a horse to water
nor a friend to mercy nor clemency.
God, the sun is incredible here, the way
it sifts through the empty trees, the way
it catches in expanses of snow rife with facets
made by transitioning warm to cold to warm to cold.
It’s warm. We all transition. There was a time when
I was so full of anger I didn’t even know that forgiveness
was part of the landscape. And today,
it is effortless—so effortless I nearly didn’t name it
as I shifted my weight from one ski to the other
in grooves I didn’t need to reinvent, my poles
moving almost of their own accord, a rhythm
not so unlike the beating of your heart, my heart.
Even Accounting for Surface Friction
Posted in Uncategorized, tagged gravity, happiness, laughing at the self, poems, poetry, skiing, surrender on March 5, 2012| 3 Comments »
Gravity, I adored you today,
the way you led me from the top of the mountain
to lower down. The clear rush of it all,
the thrill of velocity, the giving in
to forces greater than ourselves
and learning there to play.
What a sweet oxymoron,
the more mass we have, the faster
we go, and with this heart so weighted
I was surely more lickety-split
than ever before, and felt it, too,
the shocking lightness,
the reminder that all of us,
all of us are in it together,
at the mercy of this draw,
this tug, this gravity that brings us
down, down, down, wheeeeeeee down
humbled and even laughing.